Thursday, November 15, 2012

General omega

Mark Rosenthal remembers the first time he saw Jill Kelley and her
identical twin in action. It was at a dinner party at then-Gen. David
Petraeus' house, and he was appalled. "They took over the whole
conversation," he said. While the man responsible for overseeing two
wars nodded politely, Kelley and her sister, Natalie Khawam, talked
nonstop about shopping and traveling. "To me it was out of line."

If the thousands of emails spent pursuing a younger woman who no longer saw him as useful to her wasn't enough, Petraus's behavior when confronted with a pair of aggressive social climbers seals the deal. The hard bright line separating ALPHA from BETA is how a man deals with female aggression. And this sort of social climbing is every bit as aggressive as the femme fatale, the maneater, or the queen bee. By permitting them to use him as he did, Petraeus was submitting to them, sublimating his will to theirs.

The Dark Lord of the Crimson Arts is astute as ever in describing Petraeus as "the male archetype on display of the 'beta male in alpha clothing'”.

Women like Kelley and Khawam are predators, every bit as ruthless as the pure alpha on the prowl The only substantive difference is what they seek from the opposite sex. Whereas the pure sexual alpha seeks sexual access, these female predators seek social access. The moment a man indicates he is willing to bow to them, they won't hesitate to climb right over his back, not infrequently at his expense.

As with all women with dominant tendencies, such women have to be confronted and metaphorically crushed. An ALPHA would never have permitted those women to rudely dominate the conversation on trivial subjects that no one else cared about, regardless of whether he shut them up with a sly and witty comment or a direct confrontation. I've found a polite Socratic approach to be useful in this regard; simply asking the woman - and it usually is a woman - why she feels the rest of the table is interested in a monologue on the subject, whatever it is, will usually cause her to shut her mouth and pout while the rest of the table breathes a sigh of relief and moves on to subjects of more mutual interest.

Given other things I've heard about Petraeus, such as his habit of wearing all his fruit salad on his civilian suits, I'm not even sure he's a delta. He strikes me more as a try-way-too-hard omega, who somehow managed to figure out how to be socially successful through context without ever truly understanding human social behavior. Had he sexual success rather than contextual social success, he probably would have become a sigma.

43 comments:

The military, like the clerical ranks, is a highly artificial context. Take a megachurch pastor out of his circle of fans or an officer out of his uniform and circle of subordinates, and they may not know at all how to AMOG or even properly interpret cues in an an unfamiliar setting.

Interesting read on military officer culture, but especially on generals:

http://www.johntreed.com/tournament.html

Ever since I saw a Navy SEAL (Commander-rank, IIRC, active duty but in a civilian admin puke slot) sputter with trying to tell a GS3 lead mail clerk what's what, I lost any automatic respect and especially mystique about military and government ranks and credentials.

Of course, knowing a 30-years-in retired SGM with a Masters degree that can't think his way out of a paper bag doesn't help either.

@realmatt:The same way as other women. Just make sure you smile while you say it.

If you think your own family (females especially) won't respond to alpha behavior just like any other female would, you still haven't digested the red pill in all its glorious bitterness yet.

They may not be able to tell exactly what has changed in your relationship, but they will notice that something changed and they are more respectful. A good rule of thumb for how well your journey to alpha is going is whether you are alpha with your female relatives.

If you display complete congruence in your behavior with them, in other words, alpha all the time with them as with other women, they, like all other women, will instinctively respond.

Remember, women's reaction to alpha confidence is a feature, not a bug. It isn't something they do consciously, either.

Checking pictures and videos of this dude, there's nothing dominant about him. He probably ascended on his career doing political game.

Translation: kissing asses, doing what he's told, working hard. A soldier who gets promoted, but keeps being a soldier.

He shows complete deference whenever he's dealing with another political figure or an interviewer. When he gets serious about a subject, he's not commanding but instead giving a report. Like a dog doing a trick and waiting for a cookie.

One thing non-military types should understand about the Army in particular is the obsession with running. I had a 1SG that would run the crap out of us at every time possible. I can't run. However, I can wrestle, fight, and shoot. I had to put up with his constant berating me for a year. Eventually, I (PFC at the time) told him, "maybe I can't run but I can outshoot you and kill you hand to hand in less than 30 seconds." He stopped bothering me as much. Petraeus is a runner. He always has been and the Army has this ridiculous hard-on for advancing people that can run. It doesn't make any sense. They kick out the Samoan sized soldiers that can lift HUMVEEs off of you in battle because they can't run or make weight. That is why he moved up to general.

Never understood the hero worship of all things military. After 4 years in the 82nd, I can tell you there are some great guys serving their country. However, there are legions more that are nothing but a bunch of loser dipshits. I'm talking real nerds and/or social retards. And dont get me started on the clock punching lifers living the federal employee benefit dream. Underacheivers everywhere. And to a certain degree, the officer corp was made up almost exclusively of political ass kissers.

What Spacebunny and I discussed was how Alpha males lift up and enhance those around them but women, they covertly screw everything up behind the scenes when they are allowed to run amok like this. I am a woman and I love women but seriously, they can surely cause catastrophe when they are allowed free rein. That Kelley chick even used her husband (where WAS he in all of this) by sometimes referring to him as Dr. Kelley instead of as "my husband" and no one called her out on that?? WTH?

I'm not suggesting he gained his star solely based on running, however he got to LTC in a hurry because of it. His lack of opinion on anything of importance gained the latter ranks. My, purely anecdotal, experience with generals is their lack of conviction about anything. It is interesting how easy it is to impress them with insightful thoughts when given an audience.

Having spent 8 years as an AF officer, I concur with most of the comments.

My first commander (a major at the time) was the kind of guy the troops either loved or hated. I got along well with him. He was an outspoken conservative Christian, tough, very fit and a family man. He had a sense of humor but didn't put up with laziness or nonsense. He told us lieutenants that he'd never make general because he was too outspoken and not a "yes man." Last I checked, he was still a full-bird colonel

While I used to run (especially in the military), I agree with the anti-running sentiment. It's overrated for the military and for its fitness/health benefits in general. These days I only run up stairs or occasionally spring big hills.

I also think many runners have a complex from their youth. They weren't star athletes, so they have to compete in 5Ks and marathons to prove they can get medals. I'm "friends" with a few on FB and they brag non-stop about their running times, training, sacrifices ("I woke up at at 5 AM and ran in the cold this morning...please comment about how great I am!"). Wonderful. Let's meet at the pull-up bar or in a ring/cage and see how fit you are.

I've been hearing anecdotes about the lowering quality of officers for years. There being many fewer true leaders of men and the general officer ranks being filled with political animals almost exclusively.

In times of "peace" real military men are displaced by the political types. I can't speak to the current situation because I have been out for twenty years, but I saw quite a few officers that should be kept as far away from combat as possible. Since the support to combat ratio is so high it isn't hard to do that. The issue is that these are the types that prosper in "peace" and move up the ranks to the point they are making strategic decisions.

I'm not a military man, but I'm a lifter, and I ran across this article at "Starting Strength" that reaffirms "redlegben's" comments about the Army and running. I'd be interested to hear what you guys think, especially you mil guys.

http://startingstrength.com/articles/army_weak_long.pdf

Also, for what it's worth, my Dad was a decorated WWII combat infantryman. From his description of his training, they didn't do much running, and we managed to win that particular war. Just sayin'.

Your comment reminds me of Winston Churchill talking about the limited value of physical fitness for generals. He said "Could Napoleon run a mile across country at the time of Austerlitz? No, he made the other fellow run!"

This exchange was also recorded between Churchill and Gen. Bernard Montgomery, a teetotaler and fitness fanatic;

Yet one more credulous gamer tool who leaps for confirmation bias and buys into a rumor that wouldn't pass the smell test if he paid the slightest attention to detail. There were no "thousands of emails spent pursuing a younger woman who no longer saw him as useful." Period.

What a silly ego-outlet this entire site is. Even the one who ostentatiously announces that he shall append "socio-" to the sexual interpretation of game is enthralled by the strictly sexual definition of alpha. The general who distinguished himself among his peers to lead men at the very highest levels in the most manly institution we still have; who organized, planned, fought, and won wars; is not merely a beta male, but the epitome of asocial nerdishness, the omega.

Jump. The. Shark.

This "community" is worse than an echo chamber. It is a mutual masturbatorium for blue-balled intellectual poseurs, stone-aching for a fertile thought. Check out the beta on Petraeus! ... I know! He is SO beta! ... No man, he's OMEGA! ... High fives!

If Petraeus is a "beta male in alpha clothing," you are a supplicating sycophant who mistakes his servility for independent righteousness. "The Dark Lord of the Crimson Arts is astute as ever..."! Make me wretch. I am trying to figure out if you are merely a starry-eyed cheerleader, a blind transmitter of unexamined rumor, or an unusually dedicated cuckold to men who assert but do not support their superiority over you.

Yeah, like some folks have said, this is kinda typical peacetime-commander crap. You win wars by having commanders that cause problems for the enemy. In peacetime, officers get promoted based on not causing problems for anyone. It's nothing new, the US has had that problem since we got started. Look how many Generals Lincoln had to go through before he found a guys like Grant and Sherman who were more concerned with what sort of trouble they were making for Lee et al that with avoiding trouble themselves.

At the start of WWII, the Navy had to releive a lot of sub skippers from command because they were too cautious, wouldn't engage the enemy. Sailing a boat around in peacetime is dangerous enough, even more so when you intentionally sink it on a routine basis. Too many guys who prospered by not scratching the paint couldn't stick their nose far enough out to take a shot at the IJN.

Nobody was really serious about Afghan-Iraq-etc. We pussy-footed around, worried about causing too much trouble for somebody.

"Yeah, like some folks have said, this is kinda typical peacetime-commander crap. ...he found a guys like Grant and Sherman who were more concerned with what sort of trouble they were making for Lee (unfortunately - jp)...At the start of WWII, the Navy had to releive a lot of sub skippers from command because they were too cautious"

OK, but in today's feminized, highly-PC military, do you really think they could find and promote the right kind of men to leadership?

OK, but in today's feminized, highly-PC military, do you really think they could find and promote the right kind of men to leadership?

Dunno, I suppose we'll find out some day. It's nothing new though. The feminized part might be new, but the PC part isn't. I think it was Marshall who, resigning as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who told his successor that his most important job was to identify future combat commanders and protect them from the peacetime Army.

Well, we haven't had a Marshall for a while.

Anyway, the real test of an institution is if it can throw off the shackles of Prog-thought when the time comes.

Women running? For my age group, minimum run time for the USAF PT test is 16.57 for a 1.5 mile run. For the next younger age group, that's 16.22. In 2010, they changed the scoring standard to increase the weight of the run when factoring in the total score, to the detriment of guys like me who max pushups and max situps.

So yeah, women can "run", and there's some women that can flat out fly on the track, but it's not like they have a very high standard to meet to be in compliance with the reg.

And yeah, I'm of the opinion that a guy who's fit and can lift 220 is a lot more valuable to the mission than a woman that lifts 50 and can run a 10 minute mile and a half.